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God. A certain number of days shall ye fast; but he among you who shall be sick, or on a journey, shall fast an equal number of other days. And those who can keep it, and do not, must redeem their neglect by maintaining a poor man. But if ye fast, it will be better for you, if ye knew it. The month of Ramadan shall ye fast, in which the Koran was sent down from heaven, a direction unto men. 1." By the law of their religion, therefore, the disciples of Islam are required to fast, while the sun is above the horizon, during the entire month of Ramadan, from the time the new moon first appears, till the appearance of the next new moon. Throughout that period they abstain wholly from the pleasures of the table, the pipe, and the harem; they neither eat, drink, nor receive any thing into their mouths during the day, till the evening lamps, hung around the minarets, are lighted by the Imam, or priest of the mosque, when they are released. They then give themselves, without restraint, to the pleasures of the palate, and compensate, in full measure, for the penance of the day by the indulgence of the night. This is continued, according to the law of the prophet, "till they can plainly distinguish a white thread from a black thread by the daybreak."+ when the season of self-denial commences again for the ensuing day. As most of the Mahometans, however, are not too scrupulous to quell the annoyance of appetite by sleeping away the hours of the day, the observance of the fast of Ramadan is little more than turning day into night, and night into day. As the Arabic year is

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junar, each month in a period of thirty-three years, falls into all the different seasons of the solar year; and, consequently, the observance of the fast, when the month of Ramadan occurs in summer, is rendered, by the length and heat of the days, extremely rigorous and trying; especially as the poor are still compelled to labour during the day; and yet are forbidden, upon pain of death, to assuage their thirst by a drop of water.

Other fasts are practised by Moslems, recommended by either the example or approbation of their prophet; some of them copied from the practice of the Jews, and some being only perpetuations of ceremonies observed by the Arabs before his law was propounded. They need not here be particularized,

Of the pilgrimage to Mecca, though, of course, this could not be enjoined till after the period of Mahomet's life, with which the last chapter closed, it may be expedient to say a few words, in this place, that our view of his system may be complete. The sacred edifice distinguishing that city has been already described. All the buildings surrounding it, together with the ground on which the whole city stands, was deemed sacred. Every Mahometan, whose health and means were sufficient, was obliged to travel thither once at least in his life. From this duty women are not exempted. "Proclaim," says the solemn voice, from whence the Koran proceeded, "proclaim unto the people a solemn pilgrimage: let them come unto thee on foot and on every lean camel, arriving from every distant road let them pay their vows, and com

* Chap. iii.

pass the ancient house."* Certain ceremonies were to be observed in the pilgrimage. The Kaaba was to be compassed a certain number of times, and in different paces, the pilgrim observing to run between two specified mountains, and to throw stones into a particular valley. He was to be clothed in a vestment, described by some Arabian writers with great minuteness: life was on no account to be destroyed, except in certain cases which are mentioned: the pilgrims must have a constant guard over their words and actions: they must avoid all quarrelling or ill languageall intercourse with women and obscene discourse; and their whole attention must be employed in the good work in which they were engaged.

The object of these pages is rather history than moral and religious discussion; yet it is impossible to take even this cursory glance at a system of religion, in which, though it acknowledged God, the distinguishing doctrines of revealed truth are rejected, without receiving an additional illustration of the weakness and perversity of the human mind, whenever it abandons, or attempts to improve upon the instructions he vouchsafes. "The world by wisdom knew not God," is the testimony of an inspired apostle; nor can we consider either the highest flights of the heathen philosophy, or the wisest and best of the instructions of men, who, though they owed much to revelation, neither understood nor revered it without feeling how true is this decision. Some have affected that the Koran may compete with the "In Scriptures. The idea is utterly ridiculous.

* Chap xxii.

the spirit of enthusiasm or vanity," says Gibbon, "the prophet rests the truth of his mission on the merit of his book, audaciously challenges both men and angels to imitate the beauty of a single page, and presumes to assert that God alone could dictate this incomparable performance. This argument is most powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian, whose mind is attuned to faith and rapture, whose ear is delighted by the music of sounds, and whose ignorance is incapable of comparing the productions of human genius. The harmony and copiousness of style will not reach, in a version, the European infidel; he will peruse with impatience the endless, incoherent rhapsody of fable, and precept and declamation, which seldom excites a sentiment or idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the clouds. The divine attributes exalt the fancy of the Arabian missionary; but his loftiest strains must yield to the sublime simplicity of the book of Job, composed in a remote age, in the same country and in the same language."

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"Islamism appears," says a historian of the Mahometan faith, to most advantage when viewed distinct from Christianity; the nearer they approximate, the more glaring its defects become. Estimated as a system of deism, propagated at a very benighted period and time of apostacy, comprising the existence of a Supreme Being, the obligations of natural religion and a future state, it shines with some advantage over the wretched schemes of paganism, however modified. The abolition of infanticide, the encouragement given to alms and charitable deeds, must be mentioned with high approbation. The Koran also may lay claim to

elegance of style, but it is not an equable performance it is disfigured by frequent absurdities, contradictions, anachronisms. Yet, after all, beauty of style, conceded to the utmost extent, would of itself be no proof of a divine original. The mere

tricious ornaments of language are rather calculated to mislead the judgment and excite suspicion, being artifices which truth seeks not, and if they come, arise unsought and unsolicited. The Koran carries within itself decided marks of fallacy, and may be refuted out of its own mouth; but in examining those far more ancient writings, from which Mahomet has so largely borrowed yet endeavours still to depreciate, it may be justly affirmed, that the materials of which they are composed, the divine enthusiasm, simplicity, grandeur of sentiment and figure, the moral lessons, doctrines, and prophetical predictions, proclaim aloud.

"The hand that made us, is divine.'"

CHAPTER IX.

The Koran.-Its civil and judicial precepts.-Infanticide.Laws relating to marriage.-Inheritance.-Usury, debts, and contracts. Criminal code.-Murder.-Theft.-Laws of evidence. Oaths.-Civil and sacred functionaries.-Value of the system. Its success as compared with that of Christianity.

WE cannot have a complete view of the Koran, nor of the character of its author without reference to its civil and judicial precepts, as well as to its religion. A few pages must therefore be devoted

* Neale's History of Mahometanism, p. 131.

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